Edward Snowden is in good health in Russia and his lawyer there is amenable to hammering out an ending that would satisfy all. This, according to his father's lawyer, Bruce Fein, who appeared on "Anderson Cooper 360" on Wednesday night.

He relayed the conversation he had with Russian lawyer Anatoli Cuchara.

"There may be a time, where it would be constructive to try and meet and see whether there can't be common ground that everyone agrees would advance the interest, the United States, Mr. Snowden, Lon, his father and the interest of Russia in trying to resolve this in a way that honors due process and the highest principles of fairness and civilization," Fein said.

Snowden is afraid he would not get a fair trial if he came back to the United States.

WikiLeaks on Thursday released 287 documents of what it called “the Spy Files,” a trove of files exposing the reach of the global surveillance industry.

The documents - brochures, manuals, catalogs and other literature - offer a glimpse into the clandestine world of spying technology used by governments and the companies that supply them.

While some of the information was previously published in a Wall Street Journal piece about the burgeoning retail market for surveillance tools, Thursday's release in conjunction with six other organizations paints a composite of just how difficult it is for the world's citizens to truly protect their privacy.

It seems that every couple of months, sexy Russian spy Anna Chapman comes up with a new gig. Well, here we go again:

Chapman, by far the most famous member of the 10 Russian "sleeper" spies discovered and booted out of the United States last year, this month became editor of Venture Business News magazine, according to Bloomberg News.

She said she hoped to use the position at the magazine - which has an English-language version - to connect investors with innovators.

"Hopefully we will contribute" to the growth of Russia's tech industry, she told Bloomberg.

Ioffe says Chapman should do well. After all, Ioffe writes, "she has worked [at an investment bank] for all of eight months at a job so intensive that she has had time to shoot a full season of a really strange show for Russian TV."

The hackers took over computers in the executive offices of the Finance Department and the Treasury Board, unnamed sources told the network. They then sent fake e-mails to government computer techs and other employees to get them to divulge sensitive passwords in a technique known as executive spear-phishing.

Canadian federal officials disabled the two departments' internet connections for a time to halt any loss of data, CBC reported.

It isn't clear whether other departments were breached or how much data was stolen. Government officials aren't talking about the attack, which occurred in January.

The source of the hack was traced to servers in China, but that doesn't mean the hackers were Chinese, the sources told CBC. They could have routed their paths through China to hide their identities, the sources said.

The pattern of the attack mirrors the GhostNet blitz that hacked 100 other governments in March, according to the tech publication The Register.

Assange's lawyers have said Swedish prosecutors are attempting to discredit him because of his work with WikiLeaks, which published reams of classified government intelligence last year. The attorneys speculated that if Assange were extradited, Sweden could hand him to the U.S., which could charge him with espionage, leading to his confinement in Guantanamo Bay prison and his execution. The proceeding in London should wrap up today.

Protesters in peril? - There have been no reports of gunfire in Cairo, Egypt, today, but Middle East expert Fouad Ajami cautions that that is no indication protesters are safe. He says this is the most dangerous phase of the conflict for protesters because many of their identities are known to security services. If President Hosni Mubarak's administration survives, people speaking against Mubarak could face severe consequences, he says. Ajami is a professor of Middle East studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Toyota report due - A report is expected today about the government's 10-month investigation into sudden acceleration problems in Toyota cars and trucks. The Department of Transportation and scientists from NASA conducted the study at the request of Congress, following a string of consumer claims that Toyota cars and SUVs accelerated out of control.

Iran has hanged a man convicted of spying for Israel and also executed another man who was a member of a government opposition group, state-run media reported Tuesday.

The executions took place at Tehran's Evin Prison at dawn Tuesday.

Ali-Akbar Siadat was sentenced to death for working as a spy for Israeli intelligence. The Islamic Republic News Agency said Siadat admitted to transferring information to Israel over several years in exchange for $60,000.

According to ESPN, Grondona questioned why the Argentine group would have a debt so large and further told Telam, “I am not going to give any credence to whatever people say. The fact is the AFA has a solid contract with the Argentine government, and it is all going quite well.”

It’s worth noting that no FIFA official has been charged with any wrongdoing, and though many commenters have angrily vented about their country not being selected, few such complaints seem to originate in Russia or Qatar.

According to Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti, Chapman will appear on the magazine’s cover armed with a revolver and wearing nylon and lace. A photo on the Russian Maxim website shows her sitting on a red couch with two shooting targets in the background.

What's a Russian prime minister to do when welcoming back 10 agents who were expelled by the United States? Sing a few patriotic songs with them, of course.

Ten agents whom the United States expelled this month after accusing them of spying recently met with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. At the meeting, Putin joined the 10 in singing to live music, CNN confirmed Wednesday.

Among the songs they sang was "From Where the Motherland Begins," Putin told reporters, according to a transcript published on his website late last week.

"I am not kidding you. I am quite serious. And other songs of about the same content," Putin said.

The United States and Russia completed a spy swap Friday, exchanging the agents on chartered planes at an airport in Vienna, Austria, a U.S. official and Russian media said.

The planes sat on the ground for about an hour while the swap took place. Neither government confirmed what happened until the planes were on their way back home.

The plane carrying 10 Russian agents, who were expelled from the United States on Thursday for intelligence gathering, landed at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport on Friday afternoon, the airport press office said.

A separate plane carrying four people convicted of spying for the United States took off from Vienna, too, bound for a destination in the West, according to Russia Today, a state television station.

A Russian researcher convicted of spying for U.S. intelligence services could be exchanged for one of the suspects in the recent Russian spy scandal in the United States, according to a human rights activist who has spoken with the researcher's mother.

Ernst Chyorny, a member of the Public Committee in Defense of Scientists in Russia, told CNN on Wednesday that the mother of Igor Sutyagin, the convicted Russian spy, told him about the development.

Russia convicted Sutyagin in 2004 for spying for the United States. Chyorny said Sutyagin's mother visited her son at Moscow's Lefortovo prison Wednesday morning where he had been transferred from his prison camp in Russia's northern Archangel region.

"Juan Lazaro", one of the suspects in an alleged Russian spy ring, has admitted that he worked for Russia's intelligence service, according to a bail letter provided by the United States Attorney's office in the Southern District of New York.

The document states Lazaro made a "lengthy post-arrest statement on June 27th," after he waived his Miranda rights, in which he allegedly told federal agents that he was not born in Uruguay, that "Juan Lazaro" is not his real name, that his house in Yonkers had been "paid for by the 'Service' and although he loved his son, he would not violate his loyalty to the 'Service' even for his son."

The document also says "Lazaro," who is married to co-defendant Vicky Pelaez, told agents she delivered letters to the "Service" on his behalf, and that he refused to provide his real name to prosecutors.

"Lazaro" is currently appearing at a detention hearing in a New York Federal Courtroom to determine whether he qualifies for bail.

Here are the latest developments on the arrests of 10 people in the United States and one in Cyprus on allegations that they spied for Russia:

NEW

[Updated 12:51 p.m. ET] - The Russian Foreign Ministry has confirmed on its official website that the people arrested in the USA as part of an alleged spy ring are Russian citizens. The statement said that those arrested did not commit any actions directed towards American interests and asked for a guarantee that they would be guaranteed access to Russian consular officials and lawyers.

- Five more defendants in the Russian spying case have been scheduled to have court hearings Thursday, the Justice Department announced Tuesday. Donald Heathfield and Tracey Foley are scheduled to have a detention hearing in federal court in Boston, Massachusetts, while a detention hearing for Michael Zottoli, Patricia Mills and Mikhail Semenko will be in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Richard Murphy, Cynthia Murphy, Juan Lazaro and Vicky Pelaez were already scheduled to have a detention hearing on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan, New York. Anna Chapman had a detention hearing Monday and has no additional hearings scheduled, the Justice Department said, updating earlier information that she would be back in court July 27.

Former Soviet spy Oleg Kalugin, who headed KGB operations in the United States in the 1970s and later left Russia to live in America, told CNN Tuesday he is "amazed" that Moscow is engaging so heavily in espionage against Washington.

Reacting to the recent arrests of 11 alleged Russian spies, Kalugin said that getting the type of information the FBI says the operatives collected "does not require such a massive assault" against the United States.

"I am amazed," he said. "It reminds me of the worst years of the Cold War." FULL POST

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